The problem is whether these dogs existed in Newfoundland, and the evidence isn’t that great. One thing they often did was increase the size to appeal to English and American buyers. Usually, they’d cross a mastiff with a water dog.

This is a typical St. John’s water dog, the original Newfoundland working as a cart dog:

As the “large Labrador” Hawker describes — just another term for the sort of “Newfoundland dog” portrayed in Taplin’s “Sportsmen’s Cabinet” shortly after 1800. There are other contemporary depictions of similar dogs, either white with black (or red) spotting, or black with white markings.

The dog named Albert was of “pure breeding.” The dog named Vicki was half Labrador retriever.

Some of the earlier dogs had feathering, and these were exported big time because they weren’t of much use in the ice and snow. Those that weren’t supersized for the pet market were kept smaller to work as retrievers. The ones that were kept as retrievers were rarely over 85 pounds, and by the 1880’s, they were in the 55-65 pound range.

But even a dog of this size is a good hauling dog. It also has the advantage of maturing earlier and not having joints that must be watched all the time as it matures. It also has an average life expectancy greater than ten years.

Richard Wolters was able to track down which came first and what actually existed on Newfoundland in his history of the Labrador retriever.

[…] A Newfoundland-type travois dog « The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife BlogDec 29, 2011 … This is a Lakota woman and her travois dog. … I don’t know the date on which this was taken, but her dog is not a traditional travois dog. […]